Calgary Flames play AGE OF KINGS on road trips

[Jazz]

I used to play this game a couple of years ago....

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Calgary Flames Visit Ensemble Studios, makers of the Age of Empire series - 3/5/2004

In January of this year, an ES employee sent an email around the office about how the Calgary Flames unwind on their road trips. We were delighted to find that they played Age of Kings (The Conquerors Expansion), and liked it enough to set up multiplayer games on the airplanes. They took along an ethernet hub, and created an inflight LAN, playing team games of random map, turbo mode Conquerors. Cross-country flights pass quickly with that kind of entertainment. As reported in The Calgary Sun:

The laptops are plugged in to power supplies and then all networked for the ensuing battles. And for hours, in teams of three, they'll square off for world domination.

Welcome to Age of Empires, Calgary Flames style, where the action is fast and furious and bitter to the end.

We contacted their office, and invited them to stop by for a tour and visit the next time they were in Dallas . Friday, March 5 was a scheduled match, so they chose Thursday, March 4 for an afternoon visit and tour.

At the end of the tour, they were shown the playtest areas, which had been reconfigured for their arrival with 16 copies of The Conquerors all ready to play. Although they were a bit intimidated at taking on the pros like Kevin Holme and Nick Currie, they agreed that a 6 v 2 match might be interesting. They weren't buying The Sheriff's claims of rustiness at all.

To be fair to the ES employees, we finished work on The Conquerors in the fall of 2000, and most of us played very little of it after work began on Age of Mythology and The Titans. So everyone from the ES side expected the first few minutes to be tough, but we all thought the pros would figure it out pretty quickly and make an interesting game of it.

The match was set up in one half of the playtest area, with a crowd of ES employees watching the match on the wall of monitors outside the playtest area. Download the the Recorded Game.

The teams were:

Team 1 (ES)

Player 1, blue, The Sheriff, Kevin Holme, Mongols
Player 3, green, TheMoonGoat , Nick Currie, Britons

Team 2 (Flames)

Player 2, red, ferknuckle , Andrew Ference (#21), Franks
Player 4, yellow, The Destroyer, Denis Gauthier (#3), Byzantines
Player 5, light blue, THE General, Jarome Iginla (#12), Saracens
Player 6, purple, turbo , Craig Conroy (#22), Celts
Player 7, gray, reggie , Robyn Regehr (#28), Spanish
Player 8, orange, frank the tank , Shean Donovan (#16), Goths

The game was 2v6, turbo, fast, coastal map. In turbo, your villagers gather and build 3x faster than normal, and it's vitally important to keep your early villager production constant, and to make sure villagers don't have too walk too far.

To accomplish this perfect villager boom, TheMoonGoat makes ES proud with two classic moves. First, he gets housed at the one minute mark, losing 25 seconds. Then, at 3:30, he goes for the hat trick: getting housed again, then using the garrisoned TC to kill his boar…which results in it being worth 0 food.

TheMoonGoat gets housed a third time at 7 minutes. Team ES is not off to a good start.

By 9 minutes, Team ES is starting to get it together. The Sheriff reaches 1000 points when the highest score on the Flames team is 754, so you just know he's planning to take one or two of them out early. The Sheriff has a nice boat boom going, and is the first to reach castle age at 12:18. Six of the other seven players would reach castle age between 15 and 16 minutes.

With four archery ranges already built, he adds a second TC. Moments later, he sends his first 15 cav archers over deep into TheMoonGoat's base, in response to MoonGoat's earlier flare. Then the talking starts:

The Sheriff: “Where are they?”

TheMoonGoat: “What?”

The Sherriff: “I'm here, where are they?”

TheMoonGoat: “Oh, I just flared to let you know where I was.”

The Sheriff: [non-verbal sounds]

So, the Sheriff has just wasted two minutes responding to an imagined attack. His score is now 2900, while all the other players are below 1700. Time for some action.

The Sheriff goes on the attack. He passes a group of Reggie's pikemen, and decides not to chase them. The Sheriff uses his cav arches to disrupt the Flames' economies, micro-managing them to best effect.

At 21 minutes, Reggie launches the first of something we haven't seen at ES in quite a while – a huge petard attack. Some work, some don't, but it sure is fun to see some of the fun old strategies.

By this time, Team ES has its act together, and it's time to watch some of the “teamwork” by The Flames. After Craig Conroy ( turbo ) had been raided repeatedly by The Sheriff, he had called for assistance. Nobody responded. When The Sheriff attacked again, he decided to try shouting to his teammates.



turbo: “Who's not listening to me?!”

turbo: “Who's yellow?!”

The Destroyer (Denis Gauthier): “ I am, pipe down!”

turbo: “Did you see him?”

The Destroyer: “I did… ”

Of course, by the time help arrived, The Sheriff had moved on.



The game was gradually shifting in Team ES's favor throughout the first 30 minutes as the old pros relearned the game, but they weren't able to take any of their opponents out of the game. As a result, things started getting tough once the Flames started launching serious attacks, with a remarkable range of units: rams, petards, trebs, infantry, cavalry, archers and priests. TheMoonGoat was the first to fall. Minutes later, The Sheriff was overwhelmed by a superior force, and he conceded defeat.

The Flames were quite pleased with their showing, they expected to do about as well against the pros as we would if we challenged them to a 6v2 hockey game. I imagine they'd play with an open net, and the puck would never be anywhere near their goal.

Following that game, the teams split up to take advantage of the 16-seat playtest lab. The Flames, in groups of 3, challenged the several groups of “regular” ES employees, i.e. anybody except the full-time playtesters. Some wins, some losses, a bit of shouting, and a lot of fun.



After the games, ES provided them with copies of Age of Mythology and The Titans, and several armloads of promotional gear. They, in turn, provided ES employees with a block of seats at Friday nights Calgary Flames vs. Dallas Stars game.

Many thanks to the Calgary Flames for such a good time!


link: www.eso.com

[Tigger]

WOW!!! What a story! And the pictures too...thank you for sharing it Gurj!

[Jazz]

LOL, here is the original article:
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They're game for anything
Flames players and coaches pass the hours spent on long flights with video tourney, cards and even old-fashioned reading[/color]

By RANDY SPORTAK - Calgary Sun
Jan 18th, 2004

The Calgary Flames play 41 regular-season games away from the Saddledome every campaign -- and that adds up to a lot of air miles. In a special six-part series, Sun hockey writer Randy Sportak examines the anatomy of a Flames road trip -- the long flights, the roomie assignments, the team meals, the tireless work of the support staff. Join us on the journey.

It's a ritual nearly as important as a pre-game routine.

Moments after boarding the plane and grabbing a quick snack, the Calgary Flames sextet of Jarome Iginla, Craig Conroy, Andrew Ference, Denis Gauthier, Robyn Regehr and Shean Donovan fire up their computers.

The laptops are plugged in to power supplies and then all networked for the ensuing battles.

And for hours, in teams of three, they'll square off for world domination.

Welcome to Age of Empires, Calgary Flames style, where the action is fast and furious and bitter to the end.

"There are days on the four-hour trips where the game's not over, so you want the plane to circle around a few times so we can finish," said Gauthier, who teams up with Regehr and Donovan.

"Last year, at one point, it got carried away and we were finishing games in the hotel.

"Now, it's just strictly on the plane.

"It's just a great way to make the flight go faster."

Important to the standings?

No.

Important to their sanity?

You bet.

A season's worth of road trips adds up to what seems like a lifetime in the air.

Just this month alone, the Flames flew to New York, Chicago and back home -- and, within a week, they went out east again to Toronto and Washington before returning to Calgary.

Today will mean a trip to Southern California for games against the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Mighty Ducks, after which they come back for a couple of matches before heading out to Phoenix, San Jose and back.

And Calgary doesn't even travel the most among NHL squads.

That distinction belongs to the Dallas Stars.

If you don't come up with something to do, you'd go stir crazy.

Competition of some sort is the best prescription.

"There's one thing better than winning and that's winning against your teammates," Regehr said, laughing.

"I give credit to Jarome and Craig because we put a lickin' on them all last year, they never beat us once and they still kept coming back. I've got to give them points for being resilient."

Iginla's reply: "I don't think Conny had even played a computer game before. They weren't much help, either. They'd beat us in 10 minutes and we'd ask how they did it but they wouldn't tell us.

"This year, we're getting better and back at them."

Of course, computer games aren't the only way to pass the time.

Assistant coaches Jim Playfair and Rob Cookson spend much of their time breaking down video on their laptops.

Some of the gang watch movies or catch up on TV series (Jordan Leopold is in the midst of viewing the first season of the series 24).

Some sleep as much as possible.

And some still use old technology, such as Rhett Warrener, Josh Green and Steve Reinprecht, who play cards and make Euchre the game of choice.

"It's sad that computers have taken over," said Reinprecht.

Warrener will also pick at his guitar.

And many spend a good chunk of time wearing ice packs on sore shoulders, knees and whatever body part is injured.

However, the biggest gathering is always around the group battling with their digital armies.

"A first, the guys weren't sure what we were doing with all the cords running everywhere," Gauthier said.

"Now everybody's trying to peak over our shoulders to see what's going on and who's winning. It's just guys having fun."

"Guys may say we're nerds, but oh well," added Donovan with a laugh.

The Age of Empires extravaganza began simply enough when Gauthier and Iginla realized they'd both been playing by themselves at home and decided to test their skills against each other on the road. Soon after, Conroy and Regehr were brought into the fray.

With the acquisition of Donovan and Ference, it became a group of six, though with injuries the group has diminished.

Lately, those remaining have opted to play Battlefield 1942.

Donovan is considered the Age of Empires ace.

"We didn't know he played and he came in and was running the show," Gauthier marveled.

"Then we found out he was calling guys around the league and getting tips."

Guilty as charged, Donovan said.

"Greg deVries in New York doesn't talk much but you can get him going about Age of Empires," Donovan said.

"I gave him a call and he told me some things to do.

"Lots of teams around the league play it. He was telling me the plane they charter is also used by the (NBA's) San Antonio Spurs, and the flight attendant was saying a bunch of their guys play it, too.

"It's the thing to do."

Fortunately for Conroy and Iginla, their latest addition is closing the gap.

"Andy came in late and now I'd say he's the best player. I think he's training pretty hard," Donovan said of Ference.

Not true contends the defenceman.

"I don't need to practice," Ference said.

"I'm younger than all the other guys and computers are my generation."

And the battle lines are drawn.

IT'S WAR

You think the Battle of Alberta is heated? Bah! The video game that stirs the passions of Flames players is Age of Empires, in which players are challenged to build their stone-age tribes into great civilizations. There are several ways to win the game: World domination by conquering enemy civilizations, exploration of the known world and economic victory through the accumulation of wealth. Alas, the tribes never drop the gloves.

link: slam.canoe.ca/Slam040118/nhl_cal4-sun.html